Support Family Care Extension to Northeastern Wisconsinites

I’m writing to request that Pulse readers write to Sen. Lasee, Rep. Bies, or others, urging state action to extend the Family Care program to Door County and the six other area counties excluded from the program. (57 of the total 72 Wisconsin counties participate.)

Family Care is a “Medicaid waiver” program that gives elderly and disabled individuals some choice in residences that are unavailable under “traditional Medicaid.” Individuals benefit because, while the only living situation traditional Medicaid pays for is a nursing home, Family Care – which consults with the individual and family or other representatives to reach decisions tailored to individual needs and wants – also pays for the alternatives of assisted living and of at-home living with outside assistance. Taxpayers benefit because the assisted living and at-home options are generally less expensive than nursing home care. Wisconsin’s nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau reached this conclusion twice in the last decade.

My mother, age 90, lives in the assisted living section of a Sheboygan facility, with her costs largely covered by Family Care. The program worked well for us when we first learned about it three years ago and continues to be a good solution. My mother’s room is modest, but it and her care are, in our views, likely a step up from what she’d obtain in many traditional Medicaid-funded nursing homes.

Given longer life expectancies, the vast number of old boomers, and life’s unpredictability, any one of us might have to turn to Medicaid some day, even if we now do okay financially. Medicaid is not some giveaway for the chronically poor or lazy but an important safety net. Thus, questions of the alternatives available now and in the future confront us all, not just as socially responsible people but in our own personal lives – and make Family Care options or something like them all the more compelling.

See this Jan. 20th Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article for additional information: http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/availability-of-wisconsins-family-care-program-could-be-decided-soon-n58e47t-187677541.html.

Linda Laarman

Fish Creek